AusBonsai

This is a Purple leaf plum collected yeeeears ago. It was originally 2 mt high and now about 25cm.
This year for the first time I defoliated it as I was not happy with the ramification by just pruning. (especially the apex)
It was a partial defoliation. I did not touch the weak shoots but even they broke bud when I cut the leaves off the vigorous stems.
The results.......better than I had hoped. Shoots everywhere including the apex.
Same happened with my flowering apricots this year too...Very happy!

The tree Left side (excuse the bad pic) Right side Even the base was in on the act.

Nice, looks like shoots appearing anywhere you could want them

It looks like I need to get to work on a few of my prunis

That is fantastic. Thanks for sharing this information.
I have a purple leaf plum that I am trying to thicken and this would be excellent knowledge to have when I start the ramification process.

May I ask, how old is this tree?

I was under the impression plum trees do not live very long. i.e. not more than 20 yrs
Regardless, I love my little red plum bonsai but have put it back in the ground last year to thicken. It was in a pot for over 10 yrs and neglected and became leggy and stayed thin.
It has almost double in thicken since last year, but I lost my taper.

BTW, the more sun, the darker red the leafs.

longd_au wrote:

May I ask, how old is this tree?

It was probably 20 years old when I dug it from the side of the road and that was at least 20 years ago so.....

I was under the impression plum trees do not live very long. i.e. not more than 20 yrs

They will out live you no problem

BTW, the more sun, the darker red the leafs.

Yes, this is not a true puple leaf, you can get much darker ones, usually pink flowered. This has white flowers.

Nice tree... Any pics when in flower?

I've had trouble ramifying my Prunus cerasifera, and tossed the idea of defoliating around in my head - thanks for the evidence! I'll test it out this week. How soon after the leaves emerged did you you defoliate it?

Gavin

really like the way its shaping up nice work!

GavinG wrote:I've had trouble ramifying my Prunus cerasifera, and tossed the idea of defoliating around in my head - thanks for the evidence! I'll test it out this week. How soon after the leaves emerged did you you defoliate it?

Gavin

Hi Gavin, you have to let the shoots grow long and vigorous (10 or more leaves) then cut back to the desired length or a bit longer and cut the rest of the leaves off. Be sure to feed well for a month before.

Thank you Treeman, very interesting and useful information. I love a good plum and will now try this myself, thanks for the inspiration.

Flowering is probably the best it has been this year.

In the sun Under clouds I will post another pic when it is fully out.

This is a really beautiful bonsai. The flowers look amazing.

Just a quick question. How hard do you prune the roots when you re-pot?

Top notch yet again mike!

longd_au wrote:This is a really beautiful bonsai. The flowers look amazing.

Just a quick question. How hard do you prune the roots when you re-pot?

Thanks all. I'm really happy with the way it's developing. It just needs more ramification generally and particularly at the apex. The height is now 30cm so I guess it's past shohin.
Root pruning. When the tree is young, say less than 10 years, you can be quite brutal and remove many of the heavy roots and 3/4 of the fine ones, selecting only those you want. When older (this one is now around 20 years from begining of training) remove about 1/3 to 1/2 every year and tease out the rest a little so you have good water penetration. At this stage there are only fine roots growing. I presume when it reaches 50 years I will only take 1/3 and then maybe every 2 years. (If both of us are still alive)

There were rumours that shohin was now 30cm. Don't know if this is true or not but it was being talked about at our last meeting.